It's nearly the end of a good year in games and with that comes an opportunity to share our stand-out favourites! Make a list and say a little about why you enjoyed your picks. I'll go first, starting from below with:


2 - Hollow Knight

The biggest surprise of the year, Hollow Knight is one of the best metroidvanias ever made and easily the best in recent years. This game is loaded to the brim with content, so much so that it's hard to believe that it's an indie game. It's a constant stream of new areas, enemy types, bosses and secrets to explore that doesn't let up until you finish the game, soaked in a morose atmosphere of scrounging through what remains of a kingdom's former splendour. This was a treat to play from beginning to end and would have unquestionably been my favourite of the year, had it not been for...


1 - Rain World

My favourite of the year and one of my all-time favourites on the whole. This is the sort of special gem that is greater
than the sum of its parts with parts that were already exceptional. Gorgeous visuals, stellar sound and gameplay that, while difficult, is rewarding to get invested in. The world born from this captures that enjoyment of exploring and mastering the unknown, doing away with the familiar and challenging you find your place in its alien ecosystem. It is the rare sort of game that remains enrapturing even after your surprise passes, while also offering alternate routes, different endings and hidden secrets that become reachable as you get better.
Like Hollow Knight, this is a meaty, fleshed out experience that you'd be surprised was produced by a two man team and would have been an exceptional achievement for any established studio. Definitely my favourite of the year.


Honourable mention goes to Night in the Woods, Darkwood and The Sexy Brutale, which make up my top 3 to 5 and were all really good, but the top two are so good that they really deserve all the focus.

2017 really affirms again how worthwhile the kickstarter wave was. Rain World, Hollow Knight, Night in the Woods and Darkwood were all kickstarted (Darkwood on indiegogo) and I doubt we'd have seen them brought to life had they needed a publisher. A good year for indies!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

It was a pretty easy pick for me. I haven't played too many games from this year yet (haven't tried Super Mario Odyssey, Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier Automata, Nioh, Persona 5 - though that will be arriving on Christmas - or Divinty: Original Sin 2), so BotW is the clear winner.

That being said, the game really is amazing and if it wasn't my winner had I played everything else this year, it still would have been a contender.

As for games that I really enjoyed this year, that were not released this year - The Witcher III Wild Hunt, Disgaea 5, Lords of Xulima, Crimson Clover, Torchlight II, Zen Pinball/Pinball FX, Super Mega Baseball, the Shantae series, Lumo, Mini Metro and just starting Divinity Orignal Sin and Blackguards (I am trying to decide which to play first) Eventually I have to get to both sequels also.

fun thread BUT I'm a little confused, what else is new? :P

Is it games that came out in 2017 or games the we particularity enjoyed this year?

Danganronpa v3: Killing Harmony
Honestly, most of the good games this year either just wasn't my cup of tea or i haven't played yet.

The idea was games released in 2017, but if there's any older games that you played for the first time this year and really liked, like MajicMan did, that's fine too.

Oh, most of the games I listed I played before this year :P TWIII, TL2, Super Mega Baseball.

The refined list would be Lords of Xulima, Blackgaurds and Divinity Original Sin from previous years. The later two I have started and am just trying to figure out which to play first.

My backlog is huge. It's really is YUGE! as the POTUS would say.

The only notable game that I finished this year was Rise of the Tomb Raider. And I rarely get games younger than 2-3 years.

Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop is the only game released this year that I have played even if only a little. Not the kind of game I am used to so cannot really say how good it is except it looks good and it seems like I need a lot of practise in it.

ASTROKILL is in development and just might still get a release this year as it looks to be very nearly finished. This one did not, sadly, go well with me but I cannot really put my finger on why besides from not quite understanding how everything works yet. It reminds me remotely of Freespace 2 that I quit about a quarter in and uninstalled.

I enjoyed a lot of games that I played through this year, old and new (e.g. Doom, Dragon's Dogma, Far Cry Primal, The Count Lucanor, Firewatch etc.), but I think my favorite game released in 2017 was Steamworld Dig 2, a very good, mostly easy but still occasionally challenging metroidvania game. Basically just like the very nice first game but with more of everything, and while the first game was mostly digging for loot, this one also adds platformer sections, puzzles and secrets.

I have to admit though, that so far I've played none of the 2017 games mentioned above, so while I stand by my choice of Steamworld Dig 2 as an excellent game, it's also true that it didn't have much competition among the other 2017 titles I'm familiar with.

how was that? I'm a TR junky.

I can't be the only one who hasn't played a single 2017 game, can I? The absolute latest game I've played is Clash Royale, which came out last year. I usually focus on older games since they're cheaper to buy.

I've only played one, NBA Playgrounds, and that's barely a game. I mean, it's a lot of fun, but it's kind of the same shit over and over. :P Not a lot of strategy. XD

I enjoyed it quite a lot. Though I might not be a good benchmark because I also liked the reboot and always found the old ones too clunky.

Gorogoa - Only two hours long, but those are two hours of immense joy and perfection. Piece of art really...

I would probably 100% agree with you if the Rain World devs bothered to release the Linux version they promised in their Kickstarter, and which I'm no longer expecting at this point... :(((

Other than that, yeah: Hollow Knight is my 2017 GOTY hands down.